ALEX BRUMMER: Brexit was portrayed as the biggest risk to global recovery... but there are no signs of doom yet

Ahead of the Brexit referendum, much was made of the risk of Leave not just to the British economy but to the rest of the world. At the spring International Monetary Fund gathering in Washington, Brexit was portrayed as the biggest risk to global recovery.

As events unfold after the summer months, this may all prove to be true but there are precious few signs that it is happening as yet.

The American economy is gathering strength and this is exemplified by the S&P 500 index, the broadest measure of US share prices, which hit a new intraday peak on Monday following last week's strong labour market report showing 255,000 jobs were created in July.

The health of the US particularly is important to post-Brexit Britain as it is our biggest single trading partner and one with which we actually run a trade surplus.

Reading some of the reaction to last week's Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for July one might have imagined that the UK was heading for an economic catastrophe. Certainly, the Bank of England with its interest rate cut, new round of quantitative easing and bank lending support has taken out insurance against things getting worse.

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However, Mark Carney felt relaxed enough to don his Boden chic and head to the Wilderness Festival.

But how bad were the July PMIs? The falls in the manufacturing, construction and services indexes were the most jarring since 2009.

But before anyone reaches for the lifeboats BoA's global economist Michael S Hanson notes 'historically the breakeven or zero GDP growth level for the UK is 44.1.'

That is some distance away yet. Recession risk is there but is not as acute as one might believe from some of the economic commentators of the Left.

As for the rest of the world, it is as if Brexit never happened. US third-quarter growth is being revised upwards. The problems of the euro area remain as before except the crisis in the banking sector is more exposed.

Arguably if reforms are forced, as is the case at Monte dei Paschi di Siena, that could be a positive for a broken Italian financial system. In Japan healthy doses of monetary and fiscal easing should provide support for expansion, as is the case in emerging Asia.

A global downturn is still a worry. But that was the case before anyone started to think about Brexit. What is impressive is that the shock has thus far been well absorbed and the vote to leave, while disruptive, has not proved a Lehman moment.

If it also leads the UK to revisit the post-crisis fiscal settlement, and focus more on investment, then that too could be positive.

It may be too simple to draw a straight line from sterling's 10 per cent or so devaluation to a robust export recovery of the kind which followed the exit from the European Monetary System in 1992.

The bounceback then was supported by a sharp cut in interest rates. Moreover, lack of knowledge about the UK's future trading status might hurt the chances of securing medium-term export contracts.

Even so, the lower pound cannot do any harm especially if global demand does gain some post-Brexit traction.

FTSE greed

The trouble with the surging high pay of FTSE100 bosses is that we have become inured to annual feeding at the trough at the expense of shareholders and employees.

At a time when real wages are barely growing it is iniquitous that selfish chief executives are treated to pay packages up 10 per cent.

Some of these grandees, such as Rakesh Kapoor of Reckitt Benckhiser (£23.2million) and Jeremy Darroch of Sky (£16.9million), think it is fitting they are paid so well.

Unlike Sir Martin Sorrell and Tony Pidgley, the former cannot claim to have built the enterprises they run from small beginnings.

It is time to end the scandal of multi-layered bonus schemes, to give legal backing to any dissenting AGM votes against pay and end back-scratching remuneration committees, more often than not headed by non-executives who behave like nodding dogs.

Switching off

It is a very peculiar free market auction where the entry of a second party bids up the price of the product, makes access to the product more difficult and has a distorting impact on the underlying good.

These are the precise reasons why Ofcom's decision to abandon an inquiry into Premier League football rights is derelict.

BT's entry into sports broadcasting is responsible for raising the price to a record £5.1billion.

This has become an excuse to charge viewers more and fills the coffers of Premier League clubs with cash beyond the dreams of avarice which is then spent on overseas talent, crushing the domestic game.

Moreover, BT's notoriously unreliable broadband service is as big a disincentive to watch as the second-rate expert commentary.